Hennepin Theatre Trust has audiences covered with a 2019-20 season that features everything from "Frozen" to "Summer."
And theatergoers who missed out on last summer's "Hamilton" may be interested to know it's coming back, for a still-to-be-determined run during the 2020-2021 season. Meanwhile, the 2019-20 season is loaded with fresh titles to tide theatergoers over.
Leading the season are two hits, still playing on Broadway, that are multiple Tony Award winners. Highlighted by David Yazbek's soaring songs, the 2018 Best Musical recipient "The Band's Visit" is a subtle chamber piece that traces the surprising repercussions when an Egyptian band turns up lost in a sleepy Israeli town.
An award-winner the previous year, the buoyant "Come From Away" is set in tiny Gander, Newfoundland, where residents sprang to action when 38 planes full of strangers were diverted there on Sept. 11, 2001.
Also on the season are two shows that "The Band's Visit" beat for the top Tony. "Frozen," based on the movie that turned "Let It Go" into a princess-themed party staple, will run for three weeks in May 2020. And "Mean Girls" — which, like "Frozen," is based on a movie — will play for two weeks this October. With a book by Tina Fey, who wrote the comedy on which the show is based, it's a satiric look at the struggle to flourish in the high school jungle.
Another musical still selling tickets in New York is "Anastasia," about a possible survivor of the 1918 massacre of Russia's Romanov family of rulers. The show was — better take a breath — inspired by the animated musical, which was inspired by the speculative 1956 biopic starring Ingrid Bergman, which was based on a myth that was inspired by the actual massacre.
"Summer" has an easier-to-pin-down origin: Broadway's seemingly endless thirst for jukebox musicals repurposing the hits of beloved musicians. Featuring three actors playing Donna Summer at various stages of her career, "Summer" will open, appropriately, in the summer of 2020 (it ran for just eight months last year on Broadway, dancing its last dance in December).
For something old/something new, the season also includes the current Broadway hit "My Fair Lady." This post-#MeToo version of the musical theater classic, which opened last year, gives Eliza Doolittle increased agency as she transforms from a "guttersnipe" to a lady, with the condescending assistance of Prof. Henry Higgins.
